By small and simple HABITS, great things come to pass

Habits determine outcomes

You
don’t wake up one morning and become great. Neither do you wake up one morning
and become a failure. Both success and failure are outcomes of everyday
actions, habits.

If
I could give one gift to my children it would be “good daily habits,” because,
as Stephen R. Covey expressed:

“Our
character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent,
often unconscious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.” ―Stephen
R. Covey

Covey wasn’t alone in emphasizing the
importance of habits:

“Excellence
is an art won by training and habituation.” ―Aristotle

“You’ll
never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of
your success is found in your daily routine.” ―John C. Maxwell

I’ll repeat what I said earlier:
habits determine outcomes.

Achieving Your Goals Every Day

We
each have different definitions of success based on our life objectives. Every
person has something inside of them yearning to be great in their areas of interest
or passion. For some it’s to be a great musician. Others a great athlete or a
great writer.

What is your top goal right now?

You
want to become rich? Then
start with saving money every day. Spend a little less every day. Reaching your financial goals starts with
your daily habits.

You
want to get in the best physical shape of your life?
Then start with exercising first thing in the morning. Even if you just do push-ups and sit-ups as
you get out of bed. Reaching personal
fitness goals starts (and ends) with your daily habits.

You
want to become less stressed and less anxious? Then start with daily meditations and mindfulness for 10 minutes every morning.

For every long-term goal, there’s a
daily habit you can develop to take action today towards that goal.

Of course, consistency and discipline
are key to success. Try starting every day with your most important routines.
Wake up before everybody else does so you can start your day with your small
habits that will eventually lead you to excellence in your chosen goals.

Get Hyped

My
current favorite book on habits is by Charles Duhigg called The Power of Habit. One of my favorite
insights from his book is the following:

“Champions don’t do extraordinary
things. They do ordinary things, but they do them without thinking, too fast
for the other team to react. They follow the habits they’ve learned.”

If that doesn’t totally “jack you up” for
change, I’m not sure what will!

Channeling the Hype

But now that you are hyped up, how do you
translate that into change? How do you start a good habit? Or, maybe more
importantly, how do you stop a bad habit?

To
understand that, we have to understand the basics of human psychology. Psychologists
like Aubrey Daniels, BF Skinner, and many others have emphasized a basic model
to understand how humans form habits.

The
model is about as simple as they come, but extremely actionable. It’s called
the ABCs, which stands for:

Activators –> Behaviors –>
Consequences

The ABC Model Deconstructed

Let’s break this down.

An Activator is something that is a cue or trigger to
suggest to the mind to start an action (a Behavior). A Consequence is a reward
or something that happens after the Behavior.

Whether we are aware of the ABC model or not, we
experience it on a daily basis. By recognizing how we respond to different
triggers (Activators), we can both stop bad habits and create good ones.

How the ABC Model helps us stop bad habits

Recognizing the flow of the ABC model in our lives can help
us abandon bad habits because we can more consciously:

Remove Activators
that trigger bad habits

Change the Behavior
associated with an Activator

Recognize or adjust
the Consequences to discourage bad behavior

How the ABC Model helps us create good habits

Similarly, the ABC Model can help us more consciously make
good decisions towards good habits, by helping us:

Create Activators to trigger good habits

Add new positive behaviors to our repertoire

Recognize or adjust
the Consequences to encourage good behavior

By the way, a positive immediate consequence (PIC)
is the most powerful reward, because the consequence is directly connected with
the behavior. And when I say powerful, I don’t always mean good. Powerful and
immediate consequences can be what makes kicking long-term development so hard.

Case in Point: The ABC Model at Work

Let’s test the model out on developing good habits
or stopping bad habits.

Smoking: Kicking one of the dirtiest habits

Why do people smoke? Smokers know it’s unhealthy,
yet they continue to smoke because there are many Activators.

Activators for smoking could be the smell or the
time of day or seeing somebody else smoke.

There are also some positive consequences. The immediate
Consequence of smoking is a relaxed feeling and even decreased appetite. I
won’t go into the long-term Consequences, you’ve heard them before. Even though
you and I see negative consequences to smoking, the smoker feels PICs.

So to stop smoking we need to reduce the Activators
(cues or signals) and increase the PICs for not smoking. For example, don’t go hang around others at
coffee break that are smoking if that was your cue. Instead, develop PICs for not smoking. Use
the money you save to build your retirement savings. Or for something even more
immediate, like treating someone to a shake. Your reward could be either
tangible or intangible.

A not so dirty habit: Chocolate chip cookies

Let’s consider something a little less sinister:
chocolate chip cookies. Who doesn’t love chocolate chip cookies? There are so many immediate and positive
benefits for eating chocolate chip cookies.

But if I were going to try and stop eating chocolate
chip cookies for some long-term health or weight loss goals, then I would use
the ABCs.

First, remove the Activators. Don’t stroll by the
Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies on the shelf every day after lunch. Don’t have chocolate chips in your kitchen or
pantry. Take away the cues.

Second, build some positive Consequences, those same
PICs I’ve mentioned. Buy yourself a small reward for every day you don’t eat
chocolate chip cookies. Weigh yourself
every night or every morning seeing the daily benefits of not eating chocolate
chip cookies.

Developing Keystone Habits

Let’s recap.

To start a new good habit, add cues (Activators) and
add PIC rewards.

To stop a bad habit, take away those things that
activate the behavior and create new positive immediate consequences for stopping.

Now, let’s take it one step further and discuss
keystone habits.

In his book, Charles Duhigg teaches the importance
of “keystone habits.” Keystone habits
are those habits that can drive success in many areas of our life. He believes
(as do I) that exercise is one of those keystone habits:

“Typically, people who exercise,
start eating better and becoming more productive at work. They smoke less and
show more patience with colleagues and family. They use their credit cards less
frequently and say they feel less stressed. Exercise is a keystone habit that
triggers widespread change.”

My own
research shows that the
happiest people exercise at least 2 times per week.

So how do we start a new exercise
habit? Let’s look at some potential activators and PICs.

Activators

Set your running
shoes by your bed at night

Set out your
exercise clothes in your closet

Write yourself
reminders around the house

PICs

Plan to exercise
with a good friend

Weigh yourself
after every run

Reward yourself
with ice-cream on Friday night if you have exercised 4 times that week or more.

You get the idea. Apply these principles to any goal!

Where to start?

Fill out this survey to self assess where you are on developing good habits for success:.